


Breaking Point

by Ursaborea



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Be patient, Maybe - Freeform, most likely some smut will happen later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-10 16:51:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4399754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ursaborea/pseuds/Ursaborea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Listening to the party banter between Merrill and Fenris broke my heart and I needed to stitch it back together again. I should have just titled this I Love Angsty Elves and I Cannot Lie.<br/>This was going to be a one shot but i can't let it go, so expect more chapters!  This is FenHawke, by the way - or at least it will get there eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The conversations on the road were a thing impossible not to overhear, and while Varric enjoyed the company of some friends more than that of others, certain combinations of traveling companions were like oil and and water.  The two very different elves Hawke had managed to acquire were a prime example. 

More often than not when the pair of barefooted, lanky fusspots spoke the tone ranged anywhere from tormenting teasing to thinly veiled sarcastic impatience.

But that day the conversation had veered straight into a cruelty that had left everyone in unfortunate earshot of it sharing uncomfortable glances.

 _“This Keeper of yours, she was a friend?”_  
“ _She was like a mother to me, to all of us.”_  
_“Then I’m sorry.”_  
_“No you’re not! She’s just one more mage to you. Why would you be sorry she’s dead?”_  
_“I’m not sorry she’s dead, I’m only sorry she died for you.”_  
_“WHAT?”_  
_“Let’s hope the sacrifice of someone who cared for you that much isn’t wasted.”_

Fenris had been sullenly silent after he’d said his piece, while Merrill had looked as crushed as a daisy ground under heel and hoof.  The porcupine, realizing after an hour or so that the others were avoiding him in both gaze and conversation, caught up with Hawke to walk at his side, a close and silent half step behind.  Merrill on the other hand, had dropped back, far back, until she trailed behind the party so far she may well have been mistaken for a completely separate traveler.

Later that night over dinner was no different; she sat down the table at a distance that Varric at least found uncomfortable, though everyone else seemed very careful not to notice, or comment. When the evening’s drinking began and the tight cluster of the group relaxed into its own separate corners of the Hanged Man, it wasn’t long before Merrill vanished completely.  Varric indulged in at least two large pints before shoving up from the table with a low groan to go Dalish elf-hunting.  

It didn’t take him long.

Fenris started when the Dwarf nudged him in the small of the back.  For something so hefty, Varric could move with surprising silence at times.  

“What is it?” He clipped as civilly as he could manage on the end of the unwelcome shock of unwarranted contact.

“Out back.” Said Varric, head tilted back to look up at the elf.  It gave Fenris, lacking in significant height, no small amount of swelling pride, however undeserved, each time the stalwart dwarf had to do such a thing around him.  It was like taking a brief, rather pleasant vacation into the world of those around him, a little taste of that primordial feeling of superiority that height bestowed. A shortage of which never seemed to annoy Varric in any shape or form.

Fenris set his bottle upon the bar and gave the dwarf a silent, waiting stare.

“Yer needed. Out. Back.” Reiterated the dwarf, a bit less than his congenial usual self.

Fenris sighed, shrugged the unforgiving points of dark armor in a shallow bob and shoved away from the bar, padding through the stale, dim spread of the Hanged Man’s public room toward the back door.  Hand laid upon it’s rough iron catch, he paused for a second, the paranoia of treachery streaking like a white hot blaze through his brain.  He lent close to the rough wood, head turned aside, one long ear pricked and listening… but no matter how hard he strained all he could hear beyond was a muffled, wet noise that couldn’t have sounded threatening if it tried.  He gave it up and, one hand hovering above his shoulder in the vicinity of the hilt that rubbed snug against the nape of his neck, pushed the iron catch free with his thumb and pulled the door open.

What lamplight clung in the doorway behind him spilled out in an orange rush, running down the short stairs and out into the dirty little alleyway.  Merrill sat there, one step down, a hunched little ball of skinny knees and elbows, dark head bent.  

Maker, she was weeping.  Face in hands, angular shoulders bent and shuddering.  It was a choked, broken sobbing, a noise like nothing anyone ever wanted to intrude on.  And the dwarf had sent him out here.

Fenris hesitated in the doorway. There was something buried deep, deep down, something that knew or had heard this kind of cry before and lifted its sodden, heavy, hideous head at it.  Something that keened quietly and reached slippery fingers upward out of its mire to scratch ragged nails down the underside of his heart.  

There was something much more insistent and far more in control of his brain, however, that was stating very, very firmly that  _WE DO NOT INTRUDE_.

And in spite of himself, he’d just begun to rock weight backward upon one bare heel and draw the door shut again when Merrill’s dark head lifted and her back stiffened at the orange glow spilling out over her.  A tearstained face turned and then glanced upward, dark green eyes gone red around the rims wide and then narrowing in recognition before darting away.

“Oh perfect, yes.  An’ what are you doin’ out here?” She sniffled in that lilt of hers, an accent Fenris always found jarringly unfamiliar… and yet cloying in the manner of a name just on the tip of the tongue but out of reach.

He sighed, gave retreat up as a lost option, and stepped out, shutting the door behind them, which left him standing upon the top most step looking down at the pathetic huddle of mage, weight shifting uncertainly from foot to foot on the cold stone.

“You’re…upset?” He asked awkwardly.

“Ye needn’t come to gloat.” She replied, wiping roughly at the face she kept turned hard away.

“Gloat over what, exactly?” Fenris barked, a bit more stiffly than he’d meant to. He could feel the familiar tightness seeping up his chest to close hands around his throat like a tight collar. It throttled words out of him before he had the chance to weigh and measure them, and damningly enough it constantly won out.

“Ye know bloody well.  Ye made it very clear exactly your feelin’s on the passing of my Keeper today. No need ta rub it in.”

Fenris felt the set of his shoulders give a bit, his pale head relaxing into that habitual, inescapable low tilt.

“Whatever my feelings, I did not come here to gloat.”

“Oh?  What then?” Merrill sniffed, sparing him another dark glance, the dirty silver moonlight left in the alley glinting off the tapetum lucidum of eyes not unlike his own.

“N-nothing.” Fenris hesitated, the willingness to be cruel bled out of him all at once.  He reached for the door and the sweet mercy of ending this entire awkward matter.

Merrill’s tears began anew, though far less wretched than the things he’d walked out on, and hidden by the back she kept to him. He could still hear them, see them in how her spine curled back in on itself.

“Ye hate me.  Its fine… its fine. I’m not allowed to be sorry.  I can’t be your kin.  I canna be anythin.” She choked out.

It felt like it took the force of the Maker itself to remove his hand from the doorknob, but Fenris managed it, and, with one hesitating step downward, took a seat upon the step next to the inconsolable mage.

“I wanted…” She began before her voice cracked and it took several hard swallows and a few agonizing minutes of tears before she could start again, “…I wanted to be a friend to ye, ye know?  You’re the only other elf that… and Hawke, Hawke clearly loves you so much.”

Fenris felt an uncomfortable heat seep up behind the sun-dark skin of his face, and shifted in his seat on the step, suddenly fascinated with the bare bottom of his left foot as he scraped it along the edge of the flagstone step ledge.

“We were both alone.” She continued, knuckling at her wet cheeks. “I thought, I mean Hawke and Varric said you were looking for answers.  I spent my whole life learning our history.”

“Learning Dalish history.” Fenris corrected her, quickly but not, he felt, unkindly.

Breath left her in a huff of a bitter laugh.

“Where do ye think ye come from, originally?  Ye want to know your people, Fenris?  I couldn’t give ye your family but I could have told ye your roots! I just wanted…”

“I know my roots well enough.” He interrupted, sparing her a dry glance.

“Do ye though?  Ye hate your own people as much as ye hate mages!  Why??” Merrill exploded, shoving up off the step and stumbling down the final two to stand in the alley and face him.

“There’s no point in it, Merrill.” He sighed, and unsuccessfully attempted to keep from rolling eyes tiredly.

“No point?  No point!”  That’s my whole life gone then, isn’t it? No point in all my studies, no point in all the time and training the Keeper invested in me, no POINT in our history!  NO POINT IN OUR PEOPLE!  **NO POINT IN EVERY SACRIFICE I HAVE MADE TO TRY TO RESTORE…** “ 

Her pitch had picked up more and more as she’d ranted on until Fenris was fairly sure it was shaking the tiles upon the nearby rooftops.  He lept off his seat and in the span of a half a heart beat had clapped a hand over her mouth and cupped the other against the back of her head to keep it there.  The reflective glint of angry, tear stained eyes glared at him over the sharp armor of his own fingers as her voice was muffled into silence.

” _Ssshh_.“ He glanced up and down the alley and toward the back door.  There was no such thing as too cautious in his estimation. Only when there was no unwarrented noise forthcoming did he let his hands slip - and instantly wish he hadn’t. Merrill’s face beneath his fingers was a horrible thing to behold.

"You take more from me than my clan ever tried to.”

Her words struck like a fist.  Fenris blinked and, in spite of himself, jerked back a fraction, mouth open to retort.

“I know I am a mage, and I know your hate. Ye’ve made yourself very clear, Fenris.  No matter how much regret I bear for your torment, your slavery, no matter which way I try to empathize ye won’t hear it.  But what hurts more is seeing how ye act with Anders.”

“With  _ANDERS_?!” Fenris spat out, gobsmacked.

“Yes. Ye dislike him as well as ye dislike me, but ye don’t treat him as less than a dog.  He’s still human to ye, just like your Hawke.  Not me though.  I’m somehow less.  I’m no idiot Fenris.  Ye think I’m a traitor, bein’ an elf mage.  I was BORN with magic. I was third born of my clan with the gift.  It was no choice, no more than I could choose the color of my hair.  Ye think mages all wish this upon themselves? It’s no calling ye go seeking to apprentice like a cobbler or a blacksmith! I’ve heard tales of mages denied all training and they become more danger to themselves and others than you can imagine.  Ye can say what ye like about blood magic and what I have been trying to do with the Eluvian… but I am an  _ELF_ , Fenris!”

She dove forward suddenly and Fenris felt cool, damp hands pressed to his cheeks as he fell back against the finial of the step’s banister.

“ _Just like ye, whether ye like it or no_!”

It was a struggle to repress the unbidden flare of the lyrium under his flesh at the crawling sensation of unwanted contact, and for a brief moment, that dull glow flared to the surface, and in the light of it Merrill’s face, so close, looked terrified and tear streaked, like a spectre leering out of the past screaming a name he’d long forgotten.  Fenris caught her wrists and dragged her hands down - forcing the flare away as well.  He wanted, with every shred of himself, to shove her off, but he swallowed the urge and kept hold of her wrists, not ungently.

“We are nothing alike, Merrill.”

Her dark head hung, and he felt the weight of her arms as hands went limp in his hold. He drew a breath and, closing eyes, conjured Hawke.  Hawke was so much more diplomatic, or humorous or just…better at this.  

“I don’t… I don’t disown you Merrill.”  He began again, and hesitated at the ragged little sob that escaped her. “I am…sorry if what I said about your Keeper was harsh.  But, no matter what you wish, you and I will never have shared the same things.  You were born free and I in chains.  You are a mage, and I am witness to the horrors that such power can and will carve across this world. The worlds of the Dalish and the Tevinter will always be alien to each other.”

He drew a breath as Merrill’s muffled sobs redoubled, and released one of her wrists to catch a crooked finger under her chin and lift it gently.

“But…You want nothing more than to see elves restored, protected, empowered.  And it is one of my dearest pleasures to see the chains of slaves broken.”  Merrill swallowed thickly, blinking the salt burn of tired eyes at Fenris distrustfully.  One corner of his generous mouth pulled back in the allowance of a smile.  "Perhaps that is where we can find our middle ground?  A born slave knows nothing but the bondage he has endured, the lies he’s swallowed, the crush of servitude. But he deserves freedom, and… to have something to look forward to in the freedom.“   _No matter how hard it may be to find or accept that thing_ , he kept bitterly to himself.

Merrill was looking at him with wide eyes, her little brows furrowed upward in an attempt to grasp at understanding.

"Your Keeper, she was a light, Merrill, to show you the way.  The wrong way. Her fate was a half breath away from being your own.  You will never be a savoir to the Dalish through blood magic, and with the promises of demons. Indeed, you could be their very destruction, if that is the path you choose. I cannot condone it, Merrill, and you cannot ask me to.”

The elf mage looked down, every line of her sagging, and though she remained sullenly silent, Fenris caught an imperceptible little nod of her dark head. For a strange half a moment he wondered if perhaps, once, his hair had been that same earthy shade.

“If…”  He released his grip upon her other wrist and let arms drop back down to his sides, drawing a breath as he called upon what he’d seen from Hawke once again, Maker give him strength. “If you would like, I would be happy some time to hear the stories of the Dalish.”

He was unprepared for the sudden forward rush of the slightly shorter elf as she barreled into him, thin arms winding uncomfortably tight about his torso as she shoved her wet face into his throat, and thank goodness her head was turned to the side, eyes closed because Fenris couldn’t have stopped the silent, ugly way teeth bared themselves and how arms rose in useless right angles, armored hands looking like stiff, empty claws.

“Thank ye, Fenris.” She sniffled damply against the leather of his collar, her hair brushing at his chin.  Every point of contact burned, but he bore it… and with a mighty show of force, gently settled arms one over the other around her narrow shoulders, let her hang on in long suffering silence as he released one slow, controlled breath after another.

Neither noticed the little sliver of orange light that disappeared as the Hanged Man’s back door shut itself silently once more.  Inside, Varric wandered back out into the public rooms, looking pleased enough that even all the way across the room, Hawke noticed it and arched a brow upward curiously.  The dwarf brought over two fresh pints and settled himself comfortably down upon the bench just as Isabella was climbing up upon the table to launch into one of her bawdier sailing shanties.

“When you grin like that, Varric,” Hawke intoned, leaning toward the dwarf subtly, eyes on the drunk piratess above them, “I get extremely nervous.”

“Aye? You should be. Hope you haven’t any outstanding bills this month, because you are about to owe me so much coin.”


	2. Storytime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since I couldn't leave well enough alone... let me toss a few more chapters at your eyeballs.  
> In which two elves get drunk and I can't seem to capture Merrill's Welsh accent so fuck it everything sounds Scottish.  
> So much elf research happened. So much.  
> Don't fret, this is still FenHawke. It'll get there, eventually.

"So... this is where ye live."

Merrill tried, and failed, if Fenris' sharp glance was any indication, to sound upbeat about the crumbling mansion. She struggled to soften the hiccup in her tone with light laughter.

"Here I always kind of thought perhaps ye avoided the alienage because it was above your delicate sensibilities."

"I thought I made my feelings on the alienage quite clear." Came the terse response from the porcupine as he walked ahead of her down one long, dusty ruin of a hallway. "Their lack of sanitation notwithstanding."

"Hmn." The small harumph of a noise seemed the safest course of reply. After alleyway apologies, and a couple weeks of careful silences punctuated by fumbling attempts at polite small talk, the pair had settled into what felt like an amicable, if strained new manner of tolerating each other's presence. It passed as friendship - if you tilted your head and squinted just right, as Varric liked to say. Either way the eased tension had been much appreciated by the group at large it seemed, even if on the inside, to Merrill at least, it felt as if one tension had just been traded for another.

She was determined, however, to take the fresh foundation Fenris had offered her and build upon it.  Well, determined was one word, compelled might be another. Even surrounded by all the city elves in the alienage that she could have spent her time lecturing and teaching, it was the Tevinter porcupine that swallowed her thoughts. He had to know. If he just KNEW then maybe...

Maybe what? It was a question she avoided, even as it skirted at the edge of her consciousness. She built a wall between herself and it with simple answers. Maybe he'd find a sense of peace, or belonging. Maybe he'd become more of an ally to the cause of the Dalish, and all elves. Maybe it would cement a bond of friendship between the two of them that felt stronger than this strand of gossimer it was now. Maybes, lots of happy little maybes she filled that void with. They helped stop the whisper of something else left in the dark behind that wall.

So, one evening as everyone was parting ways for their beds and homes outside the Hanged Man, everyone nicely sauced in their poison of choice, she worked up the courage to stop Fenris and ask if he might be willing to sit with her some evening and speak a bit on Dalish history, as he'd offered. The end result was a begrudging invitation to his home later that same week.

It was just past dusk now, and the crumbling, ramshackle mansion was full of that blue-black light of early evening, save for the large room Fenris lead them into, whose fireplace crackled with a fire befitting the massive, yawning maw of its stone cavern.  It was hardly cold enough to require such a large flame, but it was the only light in the house. Merrill noted as she sank down before it, cross legged upon the worn carpet, that some of the logs within had intricately carved clawed feet and upholstered arms. He'd begun burning the furniture.

She glanced up with a forced, if soft smile, as Fenris hesitated before sinking onto the floor beside her, his chin tucked and gaze averted in that habitual way he had yet to break. Silence sat between them with awkwardly prodding elbows.

Merrill cleared her throat and pulled the pack she carried off her shoulder, pulling it around before herself and unthreading drawstrings to root about inside.

"I ah, I understand ye're a fan of a bit of wine?" She pulled one bottle, and then a second out of her pack, setting them upon the carpet between them in place of the silence. "It's no a fancy vintage but... it is Dalish, a fine summer wine. Thought you might like to try it?"

Fenris gave the bottles a quiet, sidelong look before reaching out to take one, the sharp lines of him visibly softening a touch.

"Thank you." He smoothed a gauntleted thumb over the peeling, yellowed, handwritten label, gazing at it a long moment before holding it out to her. 

"What does it say?"

Merrill blinked at him.

"Ye canna read it?"

Fenris' shoulders climbed upward a notch, and she caught the quick glint of hard green eyes behind the fall of white hair that his tucked chin kept so conveniently shielded. The room felt a sudden ten degrees colder, in spite of the roaring fire.

"Hawke is...teaching me. But lessons go slow." He set the bottle down again, as if now determined to ignore its existence entirely. "Slaves are not permitted to read."

"Oh." It was a pathetic attempt at a neutral response and Merrill knew it. She shook her head, picked up the bottle, and with a small knife began carefully prising the cork loose.

"Ye're so... Ye're just so knowledgeable, sometimes. And well spoken. It's difficult to believe ye never had any formal education."

She managed to send the cork flying upward where it pinged into the rafters, came ricocheting back at her and hit the floor, rolling toward the fireplace. There was a heavy pause and then the sudden unexpected burst of a laugh from Fenris. Merrill smiled wryly and held the bottle back out.

"It reads the name of the vintner who bottled it, what part of the Dalish lands it was grown, and what year it was bottled in."

Fenris took the bottle back with less hesitation this time, and gazed at the label again.

"It's very kind of ye to let Hawke teach ye."

Well that, at least earned her a dead in the eyes look from the other elf. Unfortunately it was one of those gazes you felt was passing through you as easily as his lyrium lined fist might, weighing and finding wanting. Not for the first time she found herself wondering if Fenris had a full grasp of how intensely intimidating he actually was. Thankfully the stare broke off as he tilted his head back, sampling the bottle. He considered it after a swallow, took another longer one, and brows eased their deep furrow gradually.

"It's good." He murmured, corners of mouth turning down in a not-smile smile of surprise. A third drink and he handed her the bottle back companionably.

"It's kind of ME to let Hawke teach me?" He asked, giving her a cautiously inquisitive glance.

"Aye. I think there's many things Hawke would do for ye Fenris, but trodding on your pride isna one of them."

Fenris thoughtfully watched the Dalish mage take her first sip of the wine. He'd never quite considered that perhaps teaching him to read was a pleasure for the Champion, or that allowing him to do so was a kindness on his part. It gave him no small amount of mental gristle to chew upon, but that was best left for another time.

"Mmn. This is good. Tastes of home." Merrill commented, taking a second long swallow before passing the bottle back. Fenris relaxed a bit, settling weight upon an arm braced behind himself as he accepted the bottle back and balanced it upon one knee he let fall outward, the other bent and pointed to the ceiling, his elbow resting upon it.

"I have to confess, I've never heard anything decent about the Dalish." Fenris admitted, watching the other elf make herself a bit more comfortable. "As far as I am aware its a history of a failed people. Elves who squandered hard earned freedom through arrogance and intentional poor politics with their neighbors. A people brought low by magic who nonetheless elevate such power within their own ranks and worship it in spite of the damage it has done them."

Merrill's mouth turned down a bit as she mulled over his words, watching the fire.

"It's true, after a fashion. There's no denying that what a second chance gave us, our own hubris played a role in destroying again. But there has been no other culture in Thedas that has been so marked by those around it for plunder and destruction. Should Tevinter have refused to engage in the wars of its neighbors, would their fate have been the same? So much of history is told by the victors, Fenris. Rarely is the other side of the story made known. That is why our Keepers, out history, is so important to us now. We must preserve it against all odds, to keep alive what the history of the victorious would scatter to the wind."

Fenris tried to hide a sigh behind a sip of the bottle he held. Unlike so many of the vintages down in the cellar this was not heavy and cloying, not spiced to the point that it bittered on the back of the tongue. Light and softly sweet it held apricot and summer strawberries in its slight, strange effervescence. He liked it far more than he was willing to admit.

Merrill didn't fail to miss his expression however, and let her head cant to one side impatiently.

"Alright, perhaps the more recent history of our people is talk for another time. How about something more interesting? Something older."

"That," admitted Fenris as he handed the bottle over, "Would be nice."

Merrill perked a bit, glad at last to have a willing audience out of him, and considered her options as she tilted the bottle back before turning more toward him in her easy crossed legged seat, bare toes absently curling and uncurling in thought.

"Well, ye remember my Keeper? How ye asked if she was a friend? Well a Keeper in a Dalish clan is our most important, exalted member of each clan. They are our leaders, and the Keepers of our history, though they do not rule us. Not per se. In the ages before the wars, the Keepers were high priests to our gods, and they kept each clan safe from Fen'Harel."

Another swallow and she handed the bottle back.

"Fen...who?" Asked the other elf, long ears pricking at the familiar syllable as he accepted the bottle back, but left it sit upon the floor beside him as he busied himself with removing the sharp gauntlets upon either hand and forearm, carefully laying each aside and flexing freed fingers before treating himself to the next drink. Merrill watched him carefully unwind the red sash about his right wrist before removing the armor, and just as carefully wind it back about his bared wrist afterward. She hid her slight smile behind the bent knuckles of one hand, under the guise of leaning her chin in her palm.

"Fen'Harel. The Dread Wolf. Ye canna know Dalish history without knowing of Fen'Harel. He was the betrayer, the one who tricked the gods away from this world." She turned her attention back toward the fireplace and drew a long breath. Here in the dark house, with nothing but the firelight and the stretching shadows and silence it was easy to conjure countless nights she'd spent as a child around a campfire, huddled with the other little ones, listening to the tales of the Dread Wolf and jumping at every sound from the surrounding forest, every cracking branch or rustle of leaves surely the wicked one come to eat them up in slavering, grinning jaws stained with the blood of the past.

"There are so many stories of Fen'Harel, it's difficult to know where to begin. He was a trickster, a betrayer. A constant blight to the gods until at last his treachery enticed them away from this world and sealed them off from it forever. There were two clans of gods - the Creators and the Forgotten ones. Fen'Harel was neither and could walk among them both freely. He was kin to the Creators, however, and a god in his own right. It is said after he sealed the Creators in the heavens and the Forgotten Ones in the abyss that he spent many hundreds of years hidden away in a secret corner of the world, hugging himself and laughing for joy."

Fenris lowered the bottle from his mouth slowly, watching Merrill in wary interest.

"He sounds horrific."

"Aye, but the stories diverge, ye know." She said, eyes too familiar for his liking turning toward him softly. "There are clans and stories that hold that perhaps his imprisoning of the gods was not an act of wickedness but one of painful mercy. That he removed the gods to prevent the strife they had wrought among our people. An act of kindness that turned out to have quite unintended consequences."

She gave him a long look, and reached to take the bottle from unresisting fingers.

"Surely a situation ye're not unfamiliar with?"

Fenris' silhouette tightened in an imperceptible little jerk, and he turned attention back to the hearth sharply, silence as loud an answer as any. Merrill drank and sighed a breath that she was beginning to be able to taste the alcohol on.

"Wherever Fen'Harel has come to haunt us in our history there as been strife, yet still we honor him, in ways.  Unlike the long gone gods, his aid  actually comes, but with a price, and we always leave offerings - though none worship him!" She was quick to add as Fenris gave her a disbelieving glance. "And it is our Keepers who protect us from him at his worst. You know what the Dalish say to their dogs?  When the Dread Wolf comes, take him by the ear. Imagine Hawke's mabari chasing off the great Dread Wolf!" She grinned, and dissolved into giggles, the bubbling laughter helped along by the drink. To her shock Fenris grinned, one half of his mouth pulling back in a surprisingly winsome smile as he took the wine from her with a quiet chuckle.

"Imagine Hawke's surprise when the mabari comes back with a god's floppy ear in it's mouth." He offered, to Merrill's delight.

"Ah no but that's what happened once!" She exclaimed, leaning forward a bit, planting hands upon the carpet, face pleasantly flushed from the heat of the fire and the slow, heady rise of the wine. "Once, Fen'Harel came to hunt a Keeper of a clan on the Silent Plains across her dreams in the Fade and her loyal dog gave chase. He tore the tail from the Dread Wolf..well the Wolf bit his own tail off to escape the hound, and ever since he thinks twice before comin' round when a dog is on guard!"

She grinned proudly as Fenris offered her an amused expression, downing the last of the bottle. Fond as he was of drinking, the Dalish stuff was going straight to his head as well, and so much quicker than the vintages he was used to. Light though it may have been, the stuff had deceptive strength and a sweet, buzzing high that felt so much warmer and softer than the weighty drunk of the wines he was used to.

"That's a horrible story." He laughed roughly, as if the sound were one he was still acquainting himself with.

"Oh there are worse." She agreed, having taken up the other bottle and was now attempting a repeat performance of wedging the cork out, a bit less steadily this time. Fenris took both bottle and knife from her and did the honors himself, managing the task with far less dramatic aplomb than she had.

When he handed the open bottle over she was watching him with an intentness that drew him back slightly, dark brows delving down a bit at their inner corners.

"You're doing it again."

"Hmn?" She hummed behind the mouth of the bottle, eyes still on him.

"Staring."

"Oh." She wiped a bit of dampness from the edge of her lower lip with the back of one hand. "Sorry, it's just... I know we spoke of the vallaslin before, and ye told me where your markings came from, but..."

Fenris sighed and drew both knees upright, resting arms atop them, curled into a guarded shape as he rested his chin upon forearms.

"They are not your markings, Merrill. Not anything close."

She swallowed dryly, well aware how the ice had thinned beneath her, but the wine and his previous good mood gave her a nudge of courage.

"I think they may be closer than ye imagine."

He gave her a look that could have cut glass and she meekly offered him the wine once again.

"No, hear me out. The vallaslin, it is a marking we take upon coming of age, one writ in blood ink. It is painful, and a process we must shrive ourselves before undertaking. We aren't allowed to cry out during the ceremony, and to do so would be the greatest shame, and mean that one was unready for adulthood. The markings themselves, each kind is dedicated to one of our gods, and unique within the clans to those gods they hold in highest regard. That is the history of them now."

Fenris begrudgingly accepted the wine back, resolved to keep hold of this bottle and drink at least two thirds of it before giving it back, just to serve her right for pushing this line of conversation upon him. However, there were details of her explanation that rang painfully familiar. Nothing but mild coincidence, he told himself, tipping the sweet wine back.

"In the past, however... the deeper past, it was not so. They were slave markings." She could see Fenris bristle and watch his brows huddle downward from the side, as if he wanted to ask but kept the fullness of his mouth pressed into a tight line of silence. "I've heard it told, heard it argued about at the Arlathvhen. It is not a history that many wish to speak of, but that makes it all the more important to remember, for there is no future in forgetting. The nobility of the elves marked those of the lower classes with the signs of the gods they favored."

"Danarius favored no gods and he was no elf." Fenris snapped, true to his namesake in the sudden viciousness that brittled his tone.

"No..." Merrill conceded, far too invested in her line of reason now to be put off by the porcupine's quills. "But he did use lyrium. The ability to write in lyrium is an elven art, Fenris, and a lost one of exceeding power. That he chose not only an ancient art of the Dalish, but an elf to write upon, and crafted the markings in the manner of the vallaslin?"

She shook her head slightly. In spite of himself Fenris had slowly allowed attention to drift back to her, and something about his expression, somewhere in that mired mess of shock, bad-tempered willfulness, and distrust there was a small nugget of frightened comprehension growing, she could see it. Taking refuge in the warm, boneless comfort of the wine she turned herself to face opposite the direction in which he sat and scooted closer. He stiffened at the space she ate but did not withdraw.

Merrill settled herself close beside him, her hip brushing the outside of his thigh, and she pulled off gloves before raising her hands. They hovered at either side of his face as he watched her with all the welcome of a wild thing, ready to bolt or bite. She'd learned from Varric, since the unfortunate scene she'd made behind the Hanged Man, that Fenris was not a fan of physical contact.

"May I?"

It felt like an age as Fenris stared her down, expression unreadable and unwelcoming. At long last he nodded, once.

Carefully, cautiously she let hands close in, fingertips featherlight. They grazed cheeks and tilted his chin upward. She kept her touch well clear of the pale lines limning dark skin, opting instead to trace just beside them with an index finger as gentle in its course as a painter's brush. Down his lean throat, turning his head to the side slightly to see better those that ran up along the rise of vein and tendon to end just under the hollow of long ears. His chin settled back down and with a silent question on her part, nodded in allowance as her fingers hesitated at the high collar of his tunic.

He had removed his breastplate before she had arrived, and had only worn the gauntlets, out of habit perhaps, when he'd come to the door to greet her. One by one she opened fine toggles until she could part dark leather and cloth to his breastbone. Carefully, slowly, she peeled back fabric. She could feel him watching her, the air taut enough to snap. He was a force of nature, wasn't he? Only the oppressive heat of a summer thunderstorm rolling in, sending the air crackling with electricity and scented spiked with ozone could have recreated such a tension.

Swallowing, she spread tunic far as it would permit, and again, graced lean fingertips beside the intricate whorls of pale. He let her lift the arm closest to her and lay it in her lap to do the same up the inside of his forearm, and she could feel the tension just under warm skin.  It was so very like the first time she'd held fire between her cupped palms, knowing full well how fast the pleasant heat could turn upon her. Finally, she looked up, met his eyes and, reaching up, swept the pale of hair away from his brow, baring his forehead, index finger accidentally brushing across the trio of dots there. Blue glow flared up slowly in a gradual wave, starting well out, from extremities, and working its way in toward his center and up to those hidden small dots before dissipating.

She jerked her hands back, though the weight of his arm remained resting across her lap, and one half of Fenris' mouth drew back in an apologetic, softer smile than she'd ever witnessed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *tosses angst at you and runs away cackling*  
> Apparently no one visits Fenris without bringing booze, idk.
> 
> Edit: I have no idea what is causing these formatting errors but I'm working on fixing them, sorry.

It had felt like forever since he'd had Fenris alone to himself, and though things were still a bit...tenuous between them, Hawke cherished the little moments, and their time spent reading was one of them. Left to his own devices, unbothered by the persistent call of necessity for a brief respite, he should have been enjoying the peace of his home. Instead, restlessness had descended, and grabbing a book and a bottle of whatever vintage he could most easily get his hands upon, Hawke had struck out for the decrepit manor Fenris made his home.

Not bothering to knock, in case the elf was in one of his moods not to answer, Hawke had let himself in quietly, and just as expected could see the warm glow of the familiar fire at the far end of the long hallway. He ambled toward it with a comfortable smile that faltered the second he was in earshot of two voices, one a recognizable feminine lilt. It shouldn't have stopped him, but it did. It slowed and silenced steps until he was damn near creeping to the door, lingering in the deep shadows just behind the frame and peering around it like some sort of thief.

Inside, two dark figures silhouetted against the brilliance of the massive hearth, sat Merrill and Fenris, so close there was little firelight between them.  Silence had fallen and, even at this distance, he could see the slow sweep of caress as the mage's fingertips traced Fenris' lean arm, watched her turn his hand over and run her fingers over his palm. When she reached upward and caught the softness of hair, sweeping it aside gently, the sharp, heavy stone that had somehow coalesced in Hawke's throat dropped heavily into the pit of his stomach. He could see that slow flare of lyrium, blue against the hot play of firelight, and had to shut his eyes, put his back to the door frame.

_He was an idiot wasn't he?_

Two elves, of course, why not. Merrill wanted desperately to be with her own kind and, after all, Fenris had rebuffed him so soundly. Perhaps, now that things with Verania and Darius had been settled, he wished to find other ways to reconnect with his roots? Who could blame him?

Swallowing against the raw, painful grit that stone had left in his throat, and carrying the hard, heavy weight of it that threatened to spill out of him into the void, Hawke pushed off the door frame, and as quietly as he had came, let himself out again.

 

  
Inside, Fenris withdrew his arm, and very certainly, took hold of Merrill's hands, putting one back into her lap, and pushing the bottle back into her other. He tucked the leg her hip touched under himself, effectively removing every point of contact tactfully.

A bit shellshocked, Merrill tilted the bottle back gratefully and drank far too deeply, coughing when she finally came back up for air, which only deepened that irritatingly nice smile of Fenris'. He took the wine from her, and drank himself before breaking the trance.

"Please don't do that again."

It wasn't harsh, wasn't even pleading, just quietly final. Merrill nodded tersely, blinking wide eyes, the world still insistently fuzzy and soft round its edges no matter how sobering that little experience had been. He'd felt so soft under her fingertips, warm from the fire and... real. She could feel her lean throat working in a useless swallow.

"It's... different, with Hawke." Fenris offered, by way of explanation. "It's not your fault, it's just always unpleasant, no matter what."

"I'm..." Merrill was about to say sorry, but stopped herself. Such condolences had not been greeted warmly in the past. She altered course. "Of course. Thank you, I won't."

That seemed to appease, Fenris dipping his head in gratitude and taking the wine from her. This time his fingers brushed her own and there was an illicit, electric thrill that seeped into skin, rose the fine hair up the back of her arm and sunk deep till it rose up once more across the surface of her scalp. She couldn't help but draw a breath and with effort forced her attention down upon her own feet, focusing on the heat of the fire at her back.

"I can't help but think, Fenris, that perhaps Danarius gave you markings more forbidden than you know." Her eyes rose to meet their mirror image green gazing back at them in silent, wary question.

"Your name. The lyrium writing. The manner of your markings. You, yourself. I think... if vallaslin has always been the mark of the individual gods... I think perhaps you are the sole elf to ever wear the vallaslin of Fen'Heral himself."

Fenris' eyes widened as his head drew back, denial rushing to the surface with the bitter wave of possibility following close on its tail.

"I have heard, from you and others, of the way your former master liked to mock custom, even those of the Quinari. He delved deep into the forbidden and forgotten to create the torment he inflicted upon you. Is it so inconceivable that he might twist and desecrate the traditions of other cultures for his own pleasure and gain?  To have chained the very wolf at his side in Tevinter, the site of our uprising, where not only the mages might be awed but also your own people might be reminded of their own darkest history?"

"Fasta Vass." Fenris muttered, turning his face from her, the bottle hanging heavy in a hand that rested upon his bent knee. He shut eyes, head shaking slowly. "Fade take that fucking -"

He stopped himself, forcing the bile back down with an iron fist. Shoving it into its cage. Keeping it, collecting it for when it might be useful again, a little practice he'd begun. Not as easy as it seemed, and in its place a void yawned, terrifying and pitch black, writhing with more horrible things than rage. He drank and looked to the elf beside him for anchor.

"This is all just conjecture."

Her eyes slid aside and shoulders rose slightly.

"Could be, but, there is much debate, Fenris. There is so much history we've yet to sort and so much we've yet to uncover."

Fenris snorted.

"Ah yes. Part of the reason the Dalish are so fractioned and condemned to such disparity. You may love your Arlathvhen, but the rest of Thedas laughs, sees it as the elvish arguing ceremony. They mock you, you know? It's a joke among the people. 'Why did the Maker invent arguing? To keep the elves from ruling the world." He cast Merrill a baleful glance and tipped the wine back.

"Yes, yes I know." She replied peevishly. Who hadn't heard the derisive jokes? Their culture distilled down into a punchline over ale at any ramshackle tavern. It was her turn to bristle.

"Ye can't dismiss it." She took the bottle back, and the haze kept her chin up, kept her calm in her righteous anger. "Ye can't."

Fenris' brows rose as his expression melted into unpleasant humor.

"Oh, I can indeed. And you can watch me."

"No, please." She insisted. "Look, there are too many parallels. There's too much to just pretend it's all coincidence. I know ye're prideful, Fenris. I know ye've lived more torment then I can imagine. But it's not in your nature to hide, not any more. And not from the truth. Come with me, to the next Arlathvhen. Please."

Fenris spat a breath of a laugh, harsh as the sand-grit stucco of the walls falling to decrepitude nearby.

"For what? To be paraded before your Keepers as some kind of living relic for them to argue over? To risk them thinking they had any say in my future, to chance their fear or hatred and have them wish me dead, or worse, enslaved yet again? I think not."

Merrill considered this, teeth set on edge as she turned her face back over her shoulder and watched the flames, burning low, licking at the red hot embers heaped high in the hearth. She lifted the bottle in another high tilt and drained it. Releasing a breath that burned  with alcohol she gave the green glass she held a glare, as if it could have been responsible for this mess. She'd become so self involved she failed to notice the brow Fenris cocked upward as he watched her pour her bitterness silently out onto the empty bottle. Failed to notice him rise and disappear, and only when he settled back down beside her and took the hateful thing out of her hand and replaced it with a much darker, blue glass bottle of his own cellar did she come swimming out of the depths of her thoughts, surfacing to look up at him once more.

The face she looked into was less shuttered, more dryly bemused and patently begrudging then before. Hell, on Fenris that seemed damn near close to sweetness.

"My Keeper is dead." She murmured, keeping eyes on his face. "I canna work out how much of that was my fault, and how much of it might have been hers, all I know is without her, and without myself, my clan has no Keeper. I MUST attend the next Arlathvhen. It may well mean my death, I canna tell. I know ye think I abandoned my family for some manner of glory, but that isn't so. The Sabrae have never been my blood family, I was given to them as the third born mage. But I loved them as my duty. Marethari became mother to me, mother and teacher. But even family can be wrong sometimes, Fenris. Even family can falter."

She saw him flinch, but kept pressing.

"We disagreed. In the end she did..." Merrill hesitated. Was it what she  herself couldn't have or shouldn't have done? Marethari had, unerringly, once again taken all her options away leaving her grasping at broken straws, trying to rebuild what she had so firmly thought was right. "In the end she made her own choice, and as you said, she became a light, a sacrifice. She was a hard woman. Terrifying, as a matter of fact. I once watched her send a Sylvan running like a scolded, spanked dog."

Merrill chanced a grin again and this time, between breaths, tried the wine Fenris had provided. It was delicious, dark, the autumn end of raspberries and slow biting spice. It tasted like the space between seasons, when sun still shined hot and nights came on cold enough to entice the cuddled, generous sharing of body heat. The time when stars began to brighten against the dark, as if polishing themselves for the onset of the long nights. She paused after her drink and slowly passed the bottle over. Fenris accepted it back, watching her with an expression more open than she could have hoped for.

"I have to go back, no matter what they think of me. They might have got by without Marethari, but with both of us gone?"

"They'd have Fen'Harel knocking at the door in no time." Fenris filled in for her, a breath after his own drink. "But just imagine you dragging the incarnation of him to their doorstep." He mused.

"Fenris." Maker, she was woozy, the heat from the dying fire felt delicious at her back and slowly, waveringly, she lowered herself backward onto elbows.

"Hmm?" The fire hazed reflection of wine softened eyes looked down at her from under the sweep of white hair.

"Ye aren't the Dread Wolf." She insisted, though the notion felt silly to reiterate. Something behind the wall she'd built made a quiet noise under all the muffled fog of her mind. What if he was? What if he had become, through the torment of his former master, some manner of earth-walking creature unknowingly devoted to the Betrayer? What if no one knew the extent to which the sacrilege of his mutilation went? Maybe he was the lyrium laced avatar of all that the Dalish held in most fearful reverence?

It was the maybe she had skirted so hard all this time and the noise of it felt like the hard rush of blood pounding in her ears, drowning out everything reasonable as she looked up at the handsome, sun dark face of the prickly elf who watched her out of his own obvious, comfortable wine-soaked state. He was beautiful, Merrill couldn't deny. There was something seductive in amongst all those barbed quills; a painful, lovely thing that her fingers ached suddenly to reach out and grace again.

She curled them inward on themselves instead.

"No. I'm the little wolf." He replied, with twisted humor, and drank deep. Like he would wash it all away if only there was enough of the wine.

A silence settled between them once more, each watching the other like two with the bars of a cage between them and both uncertain which one stood prisoner and which stood jailer.

"Will ye think upon it?" She finally asked, breaking the barrier as she took the wine back. "Even if ye dinna want me to introduce ye to the Keepers, having some company, having a friend at the Arlathvhen would be welcome."

Fenris looked a bit taken aback at being named a friend, and though his mouth tightened to one side in consideration, he nodded, slowly just once.

"I will think on it, but I can't make any promises, Merrill." He'd largely been expecting an evening of some rather stale history lessons and a repetitive loop of the Dalish self-wrought miseries he'd long since learnt elsewhere. The mage had given him far more to chew on than he'd ever could have anticipated, and it was a rush of information that would take soaking in.

Either way, her Arlathvhen felt like nothing but trouble, every nerve in him bristling at the idea - but her plea for the company and comfort of a trusted one was far too familiar to shove aside callously. Not, at least, without feeling like a hypocrite. He nodded again as she drank, near careless with the bottle, red staining her mouth as she let the bottle down, and the shape of her lips curved upward.

"Thank ye, Fenris." Propped on her elbows, she stretched legs outward, crossing one ankle over the other and slowly pushed the wine back in his direction.

"Another story then?"

"Yes please." He curled bare fingers around the glass, and moved forward, onto his stomach and elbows in the worn plush of the warmed carpet, and listened as she regaled him in a faltering, tipsy voice. Stories of the Creators, the Forgotten ones. The follies and glories of gods shut off from the world and the elves they held dear.

The bottle emptied, the fire burnt low into a dark glow, and outside the sky sank from an inky black only to rise again into an indigo-lavandar, the birds waking from slumber to sing the eventual oncoming of the sun as the pair of elves fell asleep alongside each other, one dark head pillowed on the outstretch of a lyrium limned arm, three empty bottles littered around and between them.


End file.
